Employment

Assistant Professor, Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies, Grand Valley State University, Fall 2022-

Education

Michigan State University, Department of History                                                                               2022

Ph.D. History

Dissertation: Hellgate to Highway: Island Making, Dredging and Infrastructure in the Detroit River 1874-1938

Awarded the Gill-Chin Lim Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Global Studies

Lawrence Technological University, College of Art and Architecture                                                              2016

Master of Urban Design with Distinction

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India                                                                                 

Master of Philosophy, Center for Studies in Science Policy                                                                               2012

Master of Arts, Centre for Political Studies                                                                                                           2008

Wilson College, University of Mumbai                                                                                                                    2005

Bachelor of Mass Media, (specialization: Journalism)

Other Academic Appointments:

Co-lead, Great Lakes History Research Group, a transdisciplinary and international research collective consisting of researchers and scholars investigating the Great Lakes region based at the University of Windsor (Canada) and Grand Valley State University (US). The Great Lakes History Research Group is interested in local and regional histories drawing interdisciplinary scholarship.

Co-PI, Homeward Stories Lab, a transdisciplinary, digital-native, and international project that showcases analyses of the Underground Railroad along the Detroit River. The lab will be an immersive analytical experience of the Underground Railroad along the Detroit River for community members and students.

Publications

Peer-reviewed articles  

(under review)

“What is a River,” Take Three Features in Modern American History  

“Borders and Migration,” Saving the World. Co-authored with Dr. Theodora Dryer

“Disrupting Settled Logics through Expansion and Co-creation: Bringing in Nature into Environmental Studies Teaching,” Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences  

“Interpreting Rivers for Dams: Indian Hydro-Engineers, Rivers and Knowledge Creation 1930-1980,” Environment and History

(published)

“Sedimentality: Sediment Landscapes, Socio-politics, and the Environment in the Lower Detroit River,” Water History 13, no. 1 (2021): 95-116.

“Floatsam: Garbage Dumping, Pollution, and Legal Tensions in the Detroit River,” Water History 12 (2020): 361-371.

“Dredge a River, Make a Nation Great: Shipping, Commerce and Territoriality in the Detroit River, 1870-1905,” Michigan Historical Review 45, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 27-46.  

 “Exportable Engineering Expertise for ‘Development’: A Story of Large Dams in Post Independence India.” Water History 6, no. 2 (2013): 153-165.

Book Chapters

“A Cohort of Their Own: Indian Hydraulic Engineers as Interlocutors of Dams and Development,” in Vincent Lagendijk and Frederik Schulze (eds.), Dam Internationalism: Power, Expertise and Technology in the Twentieth Century (London: Bloomsbury, 2024)

Current Research (in preparation)

Islands in the Straits: Technology, Transformation and Remaking Nature along the Detroit River 1860-1960 (book manuscript)

FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS, and GRANTS

International

American Society for Environmental History, ASEH Gale Fellowship                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   2024

Linda Hall Residential Fellowship, Residential fellowship                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   2024-5

American Society for Environmental History, Equity Graduate Student Fellowship                                                                                                                                                                                                          2020

National

Dorothy and Herman Miller Fellowship in Great Lakes History, William Clements Library, University of Michigan                                                                                                                                              2024-5

Mark C. Stevens Traveling Fellowship, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan                                                                                                                                                                                               2019

Career Diversity Fellowship, American Historical Association and MSU History Department                                                                                                                                                                                   2018-20

Institutional

GVSU

Catalyst Grant,Center for Scholarly and Creative Excellence                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              2024-5

Workshop Grant, School of Interdisciplinary Studies Funding for co-facilitating Social Sciences and Humanities faculty book proposal workshop                                                                                        2024

Inaugural Brooks Interdisciplinary Collaboration Grant                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      2023-4

Teaching Innovation Grant                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         2023-4

GVSU Pew Faculty Learning and Training Center for “Next stop: Midnight,” a digital humanities project chronicling the Underground Railroad along the Detroit River [Co-PI]

Summer Undergraduate Research Assistant Award [Co-PI] to supervise three undergraduate research assistants, Center for Undergraduate Scholar Engagement, GVSU                                               2023

Michigan State University

Sharing Expertise and Exploring Knowledge (SEEK) Fellowship                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         2021-2

Graduate Fellowship                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     2021-2

DH@MSU Microgrant program, Principal Investigator, Summer funding to supervise an MSU undergraduate student on a digital mapping project                                                                                      2021

Dissertation Completion Fellowship                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       2021-22

Delia Koo Global Student Scholarship                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          2021

David Horner International Student Scholarship                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       2020

Research Scholars Award                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 2020

Milton E. and Kathleen D. Muelder Scholarship                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         2020

Graduate Writing Fellowship                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    2019-20

Cultural Heritage Informatics Senior Fellowship                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 2019-20

Sinclair and S. Suzanne Powell Scholarship in Transportation History                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 2018

ESPP Urban Environment Summer Research Fellowship                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          2018

Madison Kuhn Award for best pre-dissertation project                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             2018

Cultural Heritage Informatics Fellowship                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              2016-17

WORKSHOPS/LEARNING INSTITUTES

Towards a People’s History of Landscape,  National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, (by competitive invitation)                                                           June-July 2024

Canadian History and Environment Summer School (CHESS)                                                                                                                                                                                         June 14-6, 2024

National Humanities Center Faculty Podcasting Institute, National Humanities Center & Digital Humanities Center, SDSU                                                                                                         June 2023

Immersive Visualization Institute, Michigan State University                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           June-July 2021

Humanities Intensive Learning and Teaching (HILT), Digital Humanities Summer School at the University of Pennsylvania                                                                                             June 2018

CONFERENCE/WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS (selected)  

“Designed for Profit, Circulating Cargo: Island Creation and Silt Management in the Lower Detroit River,” Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting, June 17-19, 2024

“Not Militant Enough: When Air Pollution and Activism Crossed the Michigan Ontario Border,” Midwestern History Association Annual Meeting, May 30-31, 2024.      

“Borderlands Environments and Environmentalisms,” American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting, April 3-7, 2024.

“Interpreting Rivers for Dams: Indian Hydro-Engineers, Rivers, and Knowledge Creation 1930-1980,” at Dam Scientists: Exploring the Role of Hard Sciences in Framing the Environmental Impact Of Dams Workshop, University of Trento, Italy, 2023.

“A Cohort of Their Own: Indian Hydraulic Engineers as Interlocutors of Dams and Development,” The Global Nature of Dam Building, Workshop at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld University (via Zoom), 2022.

PUBLIC HISTORY PROJECTS and PUBLICATIONS

“Playing to Pay Attention: Homesteaders and Materialities,” Network in Canadian History and Environment(July 3, 2024)

Co-host, Heartland History: The Podcast of the Midwestern History Association (Fall 2022-)

“Looking for Locherville,” Contingent Magazine(November 4, 2020).

“Twice Removed: Environmental History and the Canada-U.S. Border Through an Outsider’s Eyes,” Network in Canadian History and Environment (December 1, 2020).

“Problems of Place: When A Place Chooses You,” Environmental History Now: A Platform on Representation, Engagement, and Community(September 20, 2019).

SERVICE

Department

School of Interdisciplinary Studies, GVSU, Course Coordinator INT 314 (2024-)

University (elected by colleagues):

GVSU Faculty Salary and Budget Committee (2022-2024)

GVSU Equity and Inclusion Committee, Shared Governance (2023-2026)

Professional:

Board Member, Midwestern History Association (2024-26)

Executive Committee member, Network in Canadian History and Environment (2022-25)

          Chair, Nomination and Prize Committee, Network in Canadian History and Environment (2023-25)

Member-At-Large, HNet Council, Humanities and Social Sciences Online (2022-24)

Council Member, American Society for Environmental History (2023-2027)

Network and Book Review Editor, H-Borderlands

Co-convenor for Envirotech, Society for the History of Technology (2021-)

LANGUAGES

English (native) | Tamil (native) | Hindi (native) | Marathi (advanced) | French (beginner) | German (beginner)

SOFTWARE LANGUAGES AND ECOLOGIES

HTML, JavaScript, Adobe Creative Suite (advanced), GitHub, Tableau Public, CartoDB, Palladio, Mapbox

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

American Society for Environmental History | Society for the History of Technology | American Historical Association |Canadian Historical Association | Midwestern History Association